China

China's economic growth picked up in the fourth quarter of 2012, but data for the year as a whole showed the country recorded its slowest growth for 13 years.

Fidelity's head of research for European equities, Henk-Jan Rikkerink, has outlined eight core themes revealed in a recent survey of the group's investment professionals.

One of the industry's most widely followed strategists, Albert Edwards, has said depressed European equity markets are a once in a lifetime opportunity for investors following the savage sell-off in 2012.

MARKETS

REDWOOD

LIZARD RISK

HSBC says sterling will weaken this year as it faces a "triple cocktail" of potentially destructive factors from China, the US and the eurozone.

Mansfield Mok, the manager of EFG Asset Management's New Capital China Equity fund, has been snapping up cheaply valued Chinese banks, encouraged by the country's new leadership's plans for reform.

For the past 12 months and much of the past two years, two issues dominated investor mentality, at least when it comes to macro-related thinking: one is the US and the other is Europe.

GREEK DEFAULT